Management referred readers to check out the paper’s Caucus blog for green policy news and the Bits blog for technology news. It also provided Twitter accounts for staffers who contributed to Dot Earth.

The spiking of Dot Earth follows the NYT decision in January to close its environmental bureau.

What was the Times thinking?

The timing of the Dot Earth shutdown is unfortunate. The environment is going to be a major issue during president Obama’s second term in office.

Benjamin Cole of the conservative American Energy Alliance said of the nomination: “The EPA will look as different under Gina McCarthy as Cuba looked when Uncle Fidel passed the hammer and sickle to his little brother Raul.”

Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government, called on the Senate to reject McCarthy as, "unfit to run a Burger King, let alone a Cabinet level agency that threatens our nation's economy through its series of strange and bizarre regulatory rulings."

Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso already held up McCarthy’s 2009 nomination for the assistant administrator for air and radiation at EPA based on her plans to regulate greenhouse gas emission. That was a two-month ordeal. In his State of the Union, the president promised an activist EPA during his new term. If she is approved, McCarthy will spearhead that effort. Her confirmation hearings may make the Hagel session look like a walk in the park.